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There might have been a problem with Ultimax Rain Forest Carbine... If not for the fact that it is SA only. And assault rifle ranges are still shorter than sniper rifle ranges, so I don't see a problem here: sniper rifles are exactly for hitting things from afar and they are still #1 in that field.

So Ultimax Rain Forest Carbine is cool, but not a game-breaker. Myth Busted :-P

Aside from the single rifle that is overpowered (and I apologize for missing that when I was proofreading), but what were the other issues you had? What, exactly, did you find "out of place"?

It's the anachronistic stuff. Lever guns, black powder, WW2... We care a lot about WW2 in real life because it was our last great all out war that reshaped the world. The sixth world's culture has been through so much since then, I don't think their culture would have the same attraction to WW2 and Wild West culture that we have. Sure, there will always be historians and collectors and that's fine, but those people are not Shadowrunners. They're the same people who do antique firearms collecting and WW2 reinactments now: Fat old men with too much money. People who live and die in the streets in secret operations (which is the core of Shadowrun's setting) don't take novelty hobby guns on missions, no matter how muh we from 2013 think they're cool.

Shadowrun is unique because of it's unique setting. There are other cyberpunk games, but none quite like Shadowrun: Man Meets Magic and Machine. If we print a bunch of lolrandom books and it becomes "Man Meets Magic and Machine and Civil War and WW2 if you get all the supplements" the result is watered down, diluted by trying to shoehorn in a bunch of stuff Sixth Worlders are highly unlikely to care about.

M1 garand is an iconic weapon for us because we care about WW2. Where are the iconic weapons from the great upheaval in the Shadowrun setting? What iconic weapons do Sixth Worlders hold in the same regard as we do Nazi weapons because they were used to oppress people before the Great Ghost Dance and are a huge iconic part of their history? Where are the weapons that are important to people of the culture of Shadowrun instead of ones important to people from 2013 in an alternate timeline where Shadowrun never happened?

I love Shadowrun. I just think that focusing on enriching the culture and setting of Shadowrun is far more important in Shadowrun books than diversifying it. If we wanted diversity, we could play GURPS. We want more content, sure, but we want more strongly Shadowrun content. We don't need to pay for stats for weapons from 1940 in our timeline. We want more weapons from Shadowrun.

That's what I'm talking about. Catalyst can either choose to print funny books that appeal to niche interests to use with Shadowrun or choose to print Shadowrun books that appeal to people who love Shadowrun and play it because it is uniquely Shadowrun, not because they love ww2 and the wild west.

I didn't say what I like is more important than what you and everyone else like, I just said that what I like is Shadowrun and I will be buying and using books about Shadowrun, not about ww2 and the wild west.

Gunhaven 3 is like making a book for Shadowrun called Vehicleorama 3 and having it filled with 1970s rollerskates, spanish privateer ships from 1665 and diving bells. Even if you really love roller disco and would love to play a roller disco pirate ship captain who uses diving bells to explore shallows shipwrecks, surely you can see why people might say "Hey, I don't like this book, I feel a little cheated that it says Shadowrun on the cover because it's about weird stuff that doesn't feel like it belongs in Shadowrun and honestly, I would have preferred if the canon didn't suddenly include roller disco pirates just because a few people out there really love sailing ship roller disco diving bell experts and want to shoehorn them into any roleplaying game they play."

There might have been a problem with Ultimax Rain Forest Carbine... If not for the fact that it is SA only. And assault rifle ranges are still shorter than sniper rifle ranges, so I don't see a problem here: sniper rifles are exactly for hitting things from afar and they are still #1 in that field.

So Ultimax Rain Forest Carbine is cool, but not a game-breaker. Myth Busted :-P

Actually, the math, not the myth, demonstrates that a semi-automatic burst from the Rain Forest does more damage than a long burst from an Alpha. It also does more damage than a Desert Eagle sniper shot.

There might have been a problem with Ultimax Rain Forest Carbine... If not for the fact that it is SA only. And assault rifle ranges are still shorter than sniper rifle ranges, so I don't see a problem here: sniper rifles are exactly for hitting things from afar and they are still #1 in that field.

So Ultimax Rain Forest Carbine is cool, but not a game-breaker. Myth Busted :-P

Except that it is superior to far-more-expensive Sniper Rifles and the only Sniper Rifle with slightly-better stats is real expensive, has a high availability and comes with a steep penalty when used in a firefight. Again, I don't have the entire thing yet so can't say for sure, but there's not enough grounds to claim this isn't a problem.

As for the math, Kincaid, the math done in an earlier debate pointed out an Ares Alpha against competent enemies is superior to most Sniper Rifles in a firefight in DPS. So the Alpha still has an advantage on this one, albeit it probably barely has an edge left thanks to the big damage on this one. However, the fact there's an Automatic that basically replaces Sniper Rifles at a lower cost and only sacrifices sniping range, which rarely ever matters, is a big problem as well. So the Alpha is in trouble and all of Longarms is as well.

Still, I assume they'll errata it if they conclude it's problematic. But we need the full picture before we can debate either way, rather than a blanket conclusion.

« Last Edit: (06:58:33/12-16-13) by Michael Chandra »

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Except that it is superior to far-more-expensive Sniper Rifles and the only Sniper Rifle with slightly-better stats is real expensive, has a high availability and comes with a steep penalty when used in a firefight. Again, I don't have the entire thing yet so can't say for sure, but there's not enough grounds to claim this isn't a problem.

Well, I seriously consider the sniper ranges to be a balancing factor. YMMV, sure, I am aware of your position that most engagements in SR happen at rather short distances and I do agree, that usually you don't need the advanced range of a sniper rifle. But when you do - it makes all the difference. Being able to eliminate targets when they are unable to return fire is priceless. Moreover, I am positive that a runner shouldn't bring a sniper rifle to a running firefight. Even without said carabine the Ares Alpha was a "sniper's" weapon of choise, not sniper rifles. See Splintered State for example.

Actually, the math, not the myth, demonstrates that a semi-automatic burst from the Rain Forest does more damage than a long burst from an Alpha. It also does more damage than a Desert Eagle sniper shot.

What Michael said + underbarrel grenade launcher. Do we have to go over the importance of grenades? =)))

But we need the full picture before we can debate either way, rather than a blanket conclusion.

Sorry for my blanket conclusion: I always wanted to say something like that =P I am still positive, that the Carbine is not an issue (rifles from WAR! were an issue, but not this weapon), but I do want to hear your opinion when you get the book. Please do pm me when you've analyzed it.

Maybe it would have been better to advertise it as a niche supplement then.

It still has 28 perfectly viable guns, but they also cater to people, who would like to use the guns, hanging on the wall in a collector's house. And I do consider 38p. guns catalogues a niche: for example, many people play WoD using only generic stats like "light pistol" from the core book, without going into any detail.

Well, I seriously consider the sniper ranges to be a balancing factor. YMMV, sure, I am aware of your position that most engagements in SR happen at rather short distances and I do agree, that usually you don't need the advanced range of a sniper rifle. But when you do - it makes all the difference. Being able to eliminate targets when they are unable to return fire is priceless. Moreover, I am positive that a runner shouldn't bring a sniper rifle to a running firefight. Even without said carabine the Ares Alpha was a "sniper's" weapon of choise, not sniper rifles. See Splintered State for example.

The fact that sniper rifles and carbines are even remotely interchangeable is really weird to me from a fluff standpoint. If we can add the sporting rifle category, surely we can add a carbine category. I'd even like to see some sort of die penalty for using a longarm in tight quarters (like a narrow stairwell) to encourage diversity of weapon choice.

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What Michael said + underbarrel grenade launcher. Do we have to go over the importance of grenades? =)))

Unless I'm misreading Michael's post, I think he shares my concern about the carbine becoming a assault rifle of choice. I don't dispute the earlier findings re: longarms vs. Alpha, my main issue with the Rain Forest isn't that it outperforms longarms, it's that it outperforms the Alpha. You certainly don't have to sell me on the importance of grenades, but the carbine user could add an underbarrel launcher the day Gun and Gun comes out, so the issue here is one of timing, not game design. The people designing the product should be able to project things a year down the line and assess game balance.

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It still has 28 perfectly viable guns, but they also cater to people, who would like to use the guns, hanging on the wall in a collector's house. And I do consider 38p. guns catalogues a niche: for example, many people play WoD using only generic stats like "light pistol" from the core book, without going into any detail.

Agreed--I actually like the weird assortment of guns. A lot of the time I'll arm NPCs with lower tiered weapons, so now it's nice to have a gun to give the Amerindian hunter or the European "Great White Hunter" guy. If all 28 guns are "better" then you enter the realm of power creep pretty quickly. The assault rifle benchmark is set at 11P/-2. A shadowrunner should be able to spend some money on mods or ammo to make that better, and presumably Run and Gun will give even more ways of doing this, but if there's a *much* better benchmark out there, it becomes tricky.

When every Sniper Rifle except 1 functions perfectly normal in a firefight, you have every right to bring one into a firefight. When a cheap AR outbeats everything except the most expensive and most fragile sniper rifle, I get iffy feelings. But once again, if it's as bad as it sounds, they'll fix it no doubt.

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martinchaen

I'm just happy to see the extended Krime line of weapons. My Troll character who just managed to get his grubby hands on a Krime Kannon will soon be looking to buy more of "dese awesum shooty bits", replacing his Ingram Valiant with a Krime Wave, the Enfield AS-7 with a Krime Boss (" 'cause who dun't want a gun with BOSS in it's name, neh!?"), and picking up a silenced Krime Spree for when a little bit of subtlety is needed...

I'm just happy to see the extended Krime line of weapons. My Troll character who just managed to get his grubby hands on a Krime Kannon will soon be looking to buy more of "dese awesum shooty bits", replacing his Ingram Valiant with a Krime Wave, the Enfield AS-7 with a Krime Boss (" 'cause who dun't want a gun with BOSS in it's name, neh!?"), and picking up a silenced Krime Spree for when a little bit of subtlety is needed...

Weapons made for trolls named "Krime" seems pretty Shadowrun to me! That was my favorite part of this book, that and the flamethrower. If only the rest of the book could have been themed like Shadowrun as well!

Dual-Statted for your convenience in SR4A and SR5!!! Perfect for that person on your list that loves them their gear porn!

Dual-Statted is really important to me, as I'm in the middle of a 4th ed campaign.While I wont' be picking up any additional purely 5th ed books, as long as they keep making dual-statted ones, I'll keep buying those!

This one is now on my Christmas list!

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The Aztechnology ziggurat is imposing in only the way corporate architecture mixed with a an ancient culture renown for its human sacrifice could be. Its hard to really determine which is more chilling, though... the ancient bloody past or modern soulless technology.